With This Curse: A Novel of Victorian Romantic Suspense (23 page)

One of the footmen said something into Birch’s ear, and the butler gave a deferential cough. Atticus indicated with a nod that he might speak. “Lord Telford, sir,” he said, and I think I was not the only one who was startled to hear the title given to Atticus for the first time, “is there any danger to anyone else in the household? If the guilty party has not yet been found, should we be on our guard?”

Atticus hesitated, torn, I could tell, between wanting to reassure but not wanting to divulge too much. “This does not seem to have been a random crime,” he said at last. “I believe my father was targeted for a specific reason. But it might be a good idea nonetheless to exercise vigilance. Birch, Mrs. Threll, perhaps you can rearrange everyone’s duties for the time being so that no one need be alone. I’ll also contact the local constabulary to ask for a police presence here in the house.”

I hid a wry smile and shook my head. He could not realize it, of course, but “rearranging” every servant’s duties so that each was always accompanied by a partner would be a tall order—and would probably cause a fair amount of upheaval in the running of the household. I resolved to speak with Mrs. Threll to discuss how best these changes might be made and what housekeeping chores could be dispensed with for the time being to make this peculiar arrangement practical. With luck, though, their employer’s reassurance would prevent any from leaving their positions—whether through guilty consciences or fear of being sent after the old baron.

After he had dismissed the staff and spoken privately to Birch, and I to Mrs. Threll, I laid hold of him by the arm and told him, “Mrs. Threll is going to have your valet bring hot water for washing to your room. And then he is going to force you to sleep for at least five hours.”

His smile was a ghost of its former self. “Force me?”

“Indeed he will. And if you don’t cooperate, I’ll help him. I will hold you down if necessary.”

His eyebrows rose, and I realized too late the mental picture that my words might evoke. Hastily I continued, “You need to be rested by the time the man from the Yard arrives. He must find you clearheaded and with all your wits about you.”

“You think I’m so likely a suspect that such elaborate precautions are necessary?”

The question was posed gravely, and I answered in kind. “No,
I
don’t. But as your wife I may be biased.”

“Sweet Clara,” he said, and that phantom smile came and went again in the space of a heartbeat.

I had grown accustomed to his dropping “my love” into his speech as part of our masquerade, but for some reason this new endearment made me stumble over my next words. “It isn’t so much a matter of your being a suspect,” I said. “But the inspector will be far better able to form a theory about the culprit if you present all that you know clearly and completely. The more information he has, the better able he’ll be to perform his duty.” And I ought to get some rest as well, I realized, for the same reason: I needed to be in full possession of my faculties to be of use to the investigation.

“Genevieve,” he said suddenly, halting halfway up the stair. “Has she been told? The poor child, she’ll be terrified.”

“I’ll go to her,” I said, keeping firm hold of his arm to make him resume his progress. “She may not have awakened yet, considering the late night.” The interruption to her sleep that I had caused might also delay her waking. Perhaps my intrusion would turn out to have been a blessing, though; if she was still sleeping and had not yet heard the news, I might be able to break it to her more gently than another.

At last we stood before his door, so nearly where we had stood less than twelve hours before—and how much had taken place in that time, I could not help reflecting. At that parting I had worried about the curse, about what might transpire if Atticus and I grew too dear to one another. Such disaster had struck the household since then that I could almost think that we were somehow to blame, except that I knew neither of us had dealt the killing blow to his father. His death could not be laid at our doorstep.

Or so I then believed.

Genevieve, when I awakened her from rosy, picturesque sleep, was shocked and distressed, as Atticus had predicted. She had many questions, and I few enough answers, and I resolved to try to find some occupation to keep her busy so that she would not have much opportunity to dwell on these unfortunate events.

I was surprised not to be called in to speak to the inspector upon his arrival, but evidently he was in no hurry to question me. It was not for hours that I was summoned to the library, which Atticus had turned over to him for the duration of the inquiries. This Birch told me when he came to escort me to the library for my own turn. He said that my husband and Brutus the valet had already been interviewed at length by the Yard man. I was on the point of asking him if he himself had been questioned when we arrived at the library and he announced me.

Inspector Strack was a man of just over middle age, with iron-grey hair and a drooping moustache. He had a strange habit of squinting, which made me wonder if perhaps he needed spectacles but did not wear them. This did not bode well for his powers of observation, I felt. His suit was plainly made and of some years’ wear, to judge by the lapels and sleeves; he was either thrifty or not generously paid, or both.

“Inspector,” I said, offering him my hand, and he shook it briefly without bowing. Evidently the inspector did not believe in obsequiousness to the landed class. I hoped this reflected an egalitarian approach to investigating rather than class resentment that might lead him to look for his perpetrator among those of the sphere I had married into.

“Lady Telford,” he said. It was odd hearing my title from him, but he spoke it in as matter-of-fact a way as if it had not been a title at all. “Thank you for agreeing to speak to me. This should not take much of your time.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” That suggested to me that he was already well on his way to determining the guilty party.

But he evidently took my response in another spirit. “Indeed, I know you have many crucial domestic duties to attend to, and I’d hate to cause any disruption to your dinner menu and social calendar for so minor a reason.” His accent was not as harsh as some I had become accustomed to in London, although the sarcasm was certainly not unheard of in that region.

“As you say,” I returned, taking a seat in the straight-backed chair he had placed before the great desk, which he seemed to have appropriated. “I have a crowded schedule of beating housemaids and squandering my husband’s money, so it’s best we wrap up the trifling matter of my father-in-law’s murder as quickly as possible.”

That won me a grudging smile. “My apologies, Lady Telford. Murder cases do not find me in the best of humors.”

“Most understandable. How may I help you?”

He seated himself in the worn leather-upholstered chair behind the desk, and I wondered suddenly how many years Lord Telford had conducted his business from that very spot—all of the day-to-day matters that came with being a landowner. How indignant he would have been to have his chair borrowed by a mere inspector.

But Strack was speaking, and I gathered my wandering attention.

“I’d like your account of the day and night leading up to the discovery of your father-in-law’s death,” he said. “I’m looking for corroboration of certain facts that have been disclosed by other witnesses—”

“Witnesses?” I exclaimed.

“Not to the death itself,” he explained. “No, we haven’t been fortunate enough to locate any such creature yet, although that would be ideal! I meant only witnesses to some of what seem to be key events leading up to the crime.”

“Such as the argument between my husband and his father,” I said, suspecting that this unfortunate episode would have been made known to him already. Atticus was too forthright not to have disclosed the distasteful event.

Sure enough, the inspector gave a curt nod. “I’d like to hear your version of that, if you please.”

“I only overheard part of it; not as much as Genevieve, my husband’s ward. Unfortunately what we heard convinced us that we two were… less than welcome in Lord Telford’s eyes.”

“Be plain, please. What exactly did you hear him say about you?”

Of course it was pointless to engage in polite euphemism. “He indicated that he knew of my true origins,” I said, “and had the gravest suspicions about Vivi’s.”

“And what are your origins, my lady?” He leaned back in the chair, lacing his fingers across his waistcoat, and regarded me steadily.

“Irrelevant to your investigation,” I said crisply. “Have you any other questions for me?”

For a moment I thought he would pursue the point, but then he seemed to change his mind. “Quite a few, yes,” he said. “I’ve been informed that earlier on the night of that argument your husband was involved in another violent confrontation. He forcibly ejected a guest from the house, I understand.”

“You make it sound as if he engaged in a brawl,” I protested. “It wasn’t like that. My husband is a civilized man.”

“So these explosive rages are rare events?”

“Of course! That is, there was nothing explosive about it.” I must be more careful; the man clearly had no compunction about twisting my words. “I do not know who you’ve spoken to, but if they gave the impression that my husband was violent in any way, they misled you.”

“Ah. So your husband has never engaged in any physical confrontations that you know of?”

I chose my words carefully. “I have never once seen him raise his hand against anyone. He is not a violent man—it takes a great deal to anger him.”

“And yet twice in twenty-four hours he was observed in an angry conflict. What am I supposed to believe, Lady Telford, when your husband’s behavior changes so markedly? Has he taken leave of his senses?” He leaned forward over the desk, his eyes fixed on me as if he could catch me in a lie. “Or has his marriage to you created some change in him?”

“He has not changed,” I protested. “Only…”

“Only what?”

The words emerged in a rush. “When my husband had Lord Veridian thrown out, he believed he was defending my honor.”

The inspector pulled a face of such withering skepticism that I could feel myself shrink. “Pardon my plainness, my lady, but that makes no sense. From what I hear, the only parties maligned by the viscount were your late brother-in-law and the women with whom he consorted.”

I opened my mouth but found I had no words.

Now the inspector’s chilly eyes, as gray as his hair, fixed on me even more closely. “If you have anything to say that may remove suspicion from your husband,” said Strack, weighting the words with significance, “you owe it to him to speak. If you have anything to say, however embarrassing, that could keep his neck out of the hangman’s noose, now is the time to say it.”

With part of my mind I knew that this man was using manipulation to make me speak. But with word already having reached him of the altercation with Lord Veridian as well as the argument with the old baron, he certainly had good reason to view Atticus with suspicion. I could remove some of that suspicion by telling him of my past and Atticus’s mistaken assumptions about me… by revealing my social credentials and my marriage as the lies they were.

For an instant I felt a terrible doubt. What if being forthright with this man brought infamy upon me—and, what was more important, on Atticus? What would the inspector do when armed with the whole truth about me?

I knew that if Atticus had been with me he would have told me not to concern myself with the consequences for him, and yet it was for his sake that I dreaded letting the truth be known. But this was a matter of his innocence—and moreover, until he was ruled out as a suspect, the real killer would walk free. I had to believe that telling the truth was the right thing to do, no matter how much havoc it might cause when word escaped Gravesend… as it was bound to do. I took a deep breath, folded my hands in my lap, and looked squarely at the inspector.

“The truth is this,” I said. “As a girl, I was a servant here at Gravesend. My mother was housekeeper. When I was seventeen I was dismissed and sent away when it was discovered that I had been meeting with Atticus’s brother, Richard.” This was more difficult than I had anticipated. I sat up straighter as if it would lend strength to my will. “It… it was assumed at the time that I was carrying Richard’s child. A false assumption.”

His expression had not changed, so either I had not shocked him or he was adept at disguising shock. “So Richard left no children behind when he died at Eupatoria.”

He had been doing research, it seemed. “As to that,” I said slowly, “I cannot say for certain. I only know that there was no child of my body.”

A quick nod seemed to indicate that he approved of my precision, but, to my great relief, he did not press for more details. “After you were dismissed, what happened?”

I sketched in how I had passed the years that followed and how Atticus had emerged once more into my life with his peculiar proposition. “At first I think his father was deceived into thinking me a proper match, and he accepted me, more or less. I don’t think he would have respected any bride Atticus brought to Gravesend, but he seemed to find amusement in my conversation. If he had suspicions, he did not bait me with them—and I’m certain he would have done so, had he the opportunity.”

“So how did he discover the truth about you?”

“From what I heard him say to Atticus, he must have remembered me and belatedly made the connection that I was the maid who was dismissed.”

“Did this strike you as peculiar, this belated realization?”

I shook my head. “Unlike some masters, Lord Telford did not take great notice of the female servants—of any of the servants. I think we were largely faceless to him. Literally so, in fact, for it was the rule then for us to turn our faces to the wall if he came upon us about the house. I think that would have made it difficult for him to recognize me. But not impossible, especially given the notoriety of my dismissal.” I tried to recall what else I had overheard and what might be useful to the inspector. “He seemed to think that Atticus had done something shameful in bringing me here as his wife; he took it as a personal slight.”

“You must admit that he had some right to feel that way,” observed the inspector. “For a man of his standing to discover that his son has foisted an impostor onto him and has presented him with a chambermaid for a daughter-in-law… well, many men would be incensed at such a thing. I’m putting it as he might have seen it, you understand.”

“Of course,” I said, quelling the indignant flare of anger that had tried to rise in me. Perhaps he was trying to evoke just such a response from me, perhaps even… a new thought made my eyes widen. “I did not kill him, if that’s what you mean,” I said sharply. “My pride was not stung to the degree that I would have murdered an old man merely for saying some unflattering things about me.”

He spread his hands in a conciliating gesture, but my outburst had not visibly startled him. “I have not made any such accusation, Lady Telford.”

“It would be in your mind, though; naturally it would. From your perspective it may seem that I had a great deal to lose should Lord Telford spread word of my true history.”

“So you had not, in fact, a great deal to lose?”

“Of course not. My husband was fully aware of my past when he proposed our arrangement, so he wouldn’t have abandoned me had it become common knowledge. The worst consequences would have been our being cut by all his acquaintance.” My voice slowed, and the inspector leaned forward, seizing on my sudden doubt.

“Indulge me for a moment, my lady. If we were to make a hypothetical case for your murdering your father-in-law, you might have killed him if it would have saved your husband from becoming a pariah, mightn’t you? Think of the shame that would have followed. He would have been dropped from his clubs, snubbed by all his neighbors, derided until the two of you were forced to—what? Leave Gravesend? Sell the property, take up a trade? A living death for a peer… and for his luxury-loving wife, who feared poverty to the extent that you did.”

“That’s quite enough,” I snapped. “I’m aware of this possibility—indeed, it still exists. Silencing my father-in-law would only have been a temporary stopgap. Once he said the words, they were out in the world; there was no calling them back.”

That surprised him, perhaps the first thing I had said that did. “Are the walls of Gravesend so easily permeated that one word of gossip can spread through the air of the entire country?” he inquired, only half facetiously.

“Deride it if you wish, but a house as big as this one always has listening ears. For a start, a good valet is never quite out of earshot of his master if he can prevent it; he needs to be close enough to respond quickly whenever his presence is desired, to the point that he seems to anticipate his master’s wishes if possible. And servants speak to each other about their masters; anything that affects those above stairs affects those below, sometimes to a far greater extent.” My voice had taken on a lecturing quality, and I stopped to gather my thoughts and make certain I was not letting Strack lure me in a direction that I might regret. “What I mean is,” I said, “no matter how much I may dread a future in which my husband and I are cast out of Gravesend, there would have been no advantage, and every disadvantage, to trying to silence Lord Telford in that way. Indeed, I think that if he still lived he would greatly enjoy keeping the secret, precisely so he could hold it over our heads and torment us with it.” Belatedly I realized that this was not strengthening my case, and I fell silent, vexed with myself.